As Harvard College students and their families scraped together up to $17,000 to pay the fall installment of their termbill this week, a new government survey shows that the average student is borrowing more to attend college.

The National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, carried out by the National Center for Education Statistics, found that 55 percent of undergraduates received some type of financial aid—either in the form of grants, scholarships, loans or a work-study job.

The study found the average undergraduate had received about $2,000 more a year than they did five years ago to help attend college.

While in 1995-1996 the average student got $4,900 in federal loans or grants, that number had jumped to $6,265 in 1999-2000.

Among students receiving aid, 40 percent received grants alone and 13 percent received loans alone; 25 percent received a combination of loans and grants; 8 percent got loans, grants and work-study; and 13 percent received a different combination of aid.

Despite the recent efforts of many colleges to increase financial aid, the report noted that students at both public and private institutions were borrowing more to finance their education.

The average size of a federal student loan for undergraduates at a private university in the 1999-2000 school year was $5,161, compared with $4,967 five years earlier.

At the same time, federal student loans to state residents at public universities in 1999-00 averaged $4,743, up from $4,342 five years before, the study found.